Using schemas to generate application specific business objects for use in an integration broker

ABSTRACT

Provided are a method, system, and program for using schemas to generate application specific business objects for use in an integration broker. A schema is accessed defining an application specific data structure for one application. A business object is generated including fields corresponding to elements and attributes indicated in the accessed schema. A determination is made of application specific information for the generated business object indicating a correspondence of the fields in the business object to the application specific data structure. The business object is written out with the determined application specific information in a format that is understandable to an integration broker that communicates business objects to a plurality of applications, wherein the business object is capable of being processed by an adapter enabling communication with the application for which the accessed schema is provided.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to using schemas to generate application specific business objects for use in an integration broker.

2. Description of the Related Art

In an integrated application environment, an integration server enables data to be integrated among heterogeneous applications and the business data objects used by the heterogeneous applications. The integration server maintains a mapping for each application specific business object maintained in the integrated application environment that defines how the data in an application specific business object maps to a generic business object. In this way, data may be integrated among heterogeneous applications by transforming data from a source application specific business object to a generic business object and then from the generic business object to a target application specific business object. In this way data generated and maintained by a source application may be integrated with a target application.

Before the mapping can be generated, the user or developer of the integrated application environment needs to determine the definition and format of the business objects and then provide that definition to the integration server to generate the mappings. In the current art, schema are used to generate XML specific business objects and the XML specific business objects are limited to use by an XML application adapter.

SUMMARY

Provided are a method, system, and program for using schemas to generate application specific business objects for use in an integration broker. A schema is accessed defining an application specific data structure for one application. A business object is generated including fields corresponding to elements and attributes indicated in the accessed schema. A determination is made of application specific information for the generated business object indicating a correspondence of the fields in the business object to the application specific data structure. The business object is written out with the determined application specific information in a format that is understandable to an integration broker that communicates business objects to a plurality of applications, wherein the business object is capable of being processed by an adapter enabling communication with the application for which the accessed schema is provided.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an integrated application environment.

FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of components of the integration broker.

FIG. 3 illustrates an embodiment of how an application schema maps to fields in an application specific business object.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of how information in a generic business object maps to an application specific business object.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of operations to generate an application specific business object using a schema.

FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of operations to transfer data between a generic business object and an application specific business object.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof and which illustrate several embodiments of the present invention. It is understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural and operational changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.

FIG. 1 illustrates an integrated application environment comprising an integration server 2 and client systems 4 a, 4 b that connect over a network (not shown). The integration server 2 includes an integration broker 6 providing integration services to allow the transfer of data in application specific business objects among applications 8 a, 8 b . . . 8 n. The applications 8 a, 8 b . . . 8 n maintain data in application specific data structures 10 a, 10 b . . . 10 n, such as vendor specific databases, maintained in storages 12 a, 12 b . . . 12 n. For each application 8 a, 8 b . . . 8 n, an adapter 14 a, 14 b . . . 14 n, respectively, is provided to transfer data between application specific business objects and the application specific data structures 10 a, 10 b . . . 10 n. Certain applications may not have an associated storage, such as applications that monitor and measure parameters and transmit the information to the integration broker 6, such as an application that produces temperature measurements. The integration broker 6 may access data maintained in one source application specific data structure 10 a, 10 b . . . 10 n through the adapter 14 b . . . 14 n and transform the source application data to a business object to transfer to an application specific business object for a target application that may be then provided to the adapter for the target application to transform to a target application specific data structure. The applications 8 a, 8 b, 8 c may communicate with the integration broker 6 over the network or execute on the same system in which the integration broker 6, and thus communicate via inter-process communication techniques. For instance, the applications 8 a, 8 b, 8 c may be the embodiment of simple files on a file system, e.g., reading text files from the file system.

FIG. 2 illustrates components of a development environment 40 that may be implemented in the integration server 2 in addition to the integration broker 6. Schemas 50 a, 50 b . . . 50 n, such as XML schemas, are provided to define the structure and format of the application specific data structures 10 a, 10 b . . . 10n. A schema resolver 52 parses the schemas 50 a, 50 b . . . 50 n and generates a base structure for an application specific business object 54 a, 54 b . . . 54 n being generated. An application specific information (ASI) resolver 56 interprets the schemas 50 a, 50 b . . . 50 n to populate an application specific information (ASI) field in the application specific business object 54 a, 54 b . . . 54 n being generated. The ASI resolver 56 may service many type of application schemas for which an object discovery agent exists, not just those in XML. The ASI resolver 56 may call an application specific application agent program 58 a, 58 b . . . 58 n, such as an object discovery agent, to add information to the ASI field or generate additional classes that are used to access and manipulate the application specific business object 54 a, 54 b . . . 54 n. The ASI resolver 56 may comprise an extensible system that allows the calling of specific ASI resolvers that are able to interpret a particular form of a schema definition. A business object writer 60 populates the generated application specific business object with data to format and finalize the business object for use by the integration broker 6.

FIG. 3 illustrates an embodiment of how the definition of a schema 50 a. 50 b . . . 50 n may map to the definition of fields in an application specific business object 54 a, 54 b . . . 54 n. The schema 50 a, 50 b . . . 50 n defines a plurality of elements 70 a, 70 b, where each element may or may not have an attribute. In the embodiment of FIG. 3, each element 70 a, 70 b also includes an annotation attribute 72 a, 72 b that indicates a field in the application specific data structure 10 a, 10 b . . . 10 n corresponding to the element and/or attribute defined in the schema 50 a, 50 b . . . 50 n. There may be annotation attributes for each element and attribute, or one annotation attribute providing the mapping for an element and all attributes of that element. The application specific business object 54 a, 54 b . . . 54 n further includes a business object level ASI field 78 that might derive from the schema target name space, the root element or other information (e.g. particular element definition or annotation element in the schema). The business object 54 a, 54 b . . . 54 n includes fields 74 a, 74 b, 74 c, 74 d, where each field includes an ASI component 76 a, 76 b, 76 c, 76 d providing information on a correspondence of the field 74 a, 74 b, 74 c, 74 d to the application schema 50 a, 50 b, 50 c, Each field of the business providing the mapping of the business object field to the corresponding field in the application specific data structure. For instance, elements 70 a and 70 b may map to the application specific fields 74 a and 74 d, respectively, or the ASI fields 76 a, 76 d. The annotation attributes 72 a and 72 b may map to fields 74 b and 74 d or ASI fields 76 b and 76 d.

The ASI information may be determined from the annotation attributes 72 a, 72 b in the schema 50 a, 50 b . . . 50 n. The ASI information may be conveyed in formats other than annotation attributes. For instance, the ASI can be constructed based on conventions (e.g. element name corresponds to table name or column name), by schema comments, by schema annotations or some other way.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of how a mapping 80 provides a mapping between fields 84 a, 84 b, 84 c, 84 d in a generic business object 82, which may be manipulated and used by the integration broker 6, and the fields in an application specific business object 54, such as one of the application specific business objects 54 a, 54 b . . . 54 n. There may be a separate mapping 80 for each application specific business object type to provide a mapping to a generic business object that is used by the integration broker 6 in various integration broker services, such as messaging, workflow, etc.

In one embodiment, XML attributes may map to the corresponding business object field. Also, XML elements may map to a business object if the element describes a complex type, otherwise it may map to a business object field. Annotation elements, such as comments, naming conventions on either the attribute or element name, naming conventions on either a complex type and/or a simple type or extension elements may map to their corresponding field level ASI information or business object level ASI if the annotation applies to the business object as a whole. Parts of the target namespace or other top level annotation objects may map to the business object level ASI. In certain embodiments, annotation or other schema elements other than XML elements and XML attributes may not map to a business object or business object field, and instead may map to their corresponding ASI field. Alternatively, XML elements and attributes may map to business objects and business object fields and may also map to their corresponding ASI fields.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of operations to generate an application specific business object implemented in the components of the integration broker 6 during a development time. These objects are then later used in a runtime mode to transfer data among applications. Upon invoking (at block 100) operations to generate an application specific business object 54 a, 54 b . . . 54 n (FIG. 2), the schema resolver 52 accesses (at block 102) a schema 50 a, 50 b . . . 50 n defining an application specific data structure 10 a, 10 b . . . 10 n (FIG. 1) for one application 8 a, 8 b . . . 8 n. The schema resolver 52 then generates (at block 104) a business object including fields, e.g., 74 a, 74 b, 74 c, 74 d, corresponding to elements 70 a, 70 b and attributes 72 a, 72 b indicated in the accessed schema 50 a, 50 b . . . 50 n. The ASI resolver 56 determines (at block 106) business object level application specific information 78 and application specific information (ASI) 76 a, 76 b, 76 c, 76 d for each field 74 a, 74 b, 74 c, 74 d in the generated business object 54 indicating a correspondence of the fields 74 a, 74 b, 74, 74 d in the business object and the application specific data structure 10 a, 10 b . . . 10 n, which is defined by the element/attribute arrangement in the application schema 50 a, 50 b . . . 50 n. The ASI resolver 56 may interpret the accessed schema and the annotation attribute information to determine the ASI information. If (at block 108) the ASI resolver 52 determines that an agent for the application 8 a, 8 b . . . 8 n needs to be called to add application specific information (ASI) to the generated business object 54, then the ASI resolver 52 calls (at block 110) an application specific agent 58 a, 58 b . . . 58 n, such as an Object Discovery Agent (ODA), to generate supporting classes and any additional application specific information for the generated business object. The supporting classes and additional information may be needed by the application specific adapter 14 a, 14 b . . . 14 n to process the business object for the application 8 a, 8 b . . . 8 n associated with the adapter 14 a, 14 b . . . 14 n. From block 108 or 110, the business object writer 60 writes out (at block 112) the business object 54 with the determined application specific information (ASI) in a format that is understandable to an adapter 14 a, 14 b . . . 14 n interfacing between the integration broker 6 and the applications 8 a, 8 b . . . 8 n and their data structure 10 a, 10 b . . . 10 n formats. The application specific business object can be processed by the adapter 14 a, 14 b . . . 14 n for the application for which the schema is provided. The adapter 14 a, 14 b . . . 14 n is on the application side and does the conversion from business object to/from application specific data (XML, database access, IDOC access on SAP, PeopleSoft, custom protocol, custom format, a file system, text files, etc.).

During development time, the operations of FIG. 5 are performed to generate source and target application specific objects, the mappings 80, and other artifacts used by the integration broker 6 and application adapters 14 a, 14 b . . . 14 n during runtime to transfer data among application specific business objects 54 a, 54 b . . . 54 n. Further, during development time, the components in the development environment 40 build generic business objects by using a schema, by reusing existing generic objects, manually, or by using an application agent 58 a, 58 b . . . 58 n, and then removing any ASI information. During development time, the mappings, such as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 would be developed to map between source and target applications and a generic business object. These generated objects, mappings and other information, such as a synchronization, are then deployed for use during runtime by the integration broker 6 and application adapters 14 a, 14 b . . . 14 n.

FIG. 6 illustrates runtime operations to transfer data between a source and target applications 8 a, 8 b . . . 8 n using the generic business objects, application specific business objects and mappings generated during the development time. To initiate this process (at block 150), a source application adapter, e.g., 14 a, reads (at block 152) source data in the source application's proprietary data structure, e.g., 10 a. The source application adapter 14 then formats and converts (at block 154) the read data and adds the data to an application specific business object using the ASI information 78 in the application specific business object, e.g., 54 a. The source application adapter 14 a then transmits (at block 156) the filled application specific business object 54 a to the integration broker 6 to send to a target application, e.g., 8 b. The integration broker 6 calls (at block 158) a source-to-generic mapping 80 and creates a generic business object 82 including data from application specific business object 54 a. The integration broker 6 then calls (at block 160) the generic-to-target mapping for the target application and creates a target application specific business object, e.g., 54 b, including data from the generic business object 82. The integration broker 6 then sends the target application specific object 54 b to the target adapter, e.g., 14 b. The target adapter 14 b converts (at block 162) the target application specific object 54 b to the target application's proprietary data structure format, e.g., 10 b, using the ASI information 78 in the target application specific object 54 b.

Described embodiments provide techniques to create application specific business objects from schemas providing information on the application specific data structures. An integration broker may then transfer data between application specific business objects for heterogeneous applications from different vendors that maintain data in different application specific data formats. The integration broker may maintain data from application specific business objects in a generic business object format and then transfer the data using application specific mappings to one or more application specific business objects that may then be transferred to the application specific data format by an application adapter. The described embodiments enable the transfer of data among heterogeneous applications from different vendors that maintain data in heterogeneous application specific data formats.

Additional Embodiment Details

The described operations may be implemented as a method, apparatus or article of manufacture using standard programming and/or engineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof. The term “article of manufacture” as used herein refers to code or logic implemented in hardware logic (e.g., an integrated circuit chip, Programmable Gate Array (PGA), Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), etc.) or a computer readable medium, such as magnetic storage medium (e.g., hard disk drives, floppy disks,, tape, etc.), optical storage (CD-ROMs, optical disks, etc.), volatile and non-volatile memory devices (e.g., EEPROMs, ROMs, PROMs, RAMs, DRAMs, SRAMs, firmware, programmable logic, etc.). Code in the computer readable medium is accessed and executed by a processor. The code in which preferred embodiments are implemented may further be accessible through a transmission media or from a file server over a network. In such cases, the article of manufacture in which the code is implemented may comprise a transmission media, such as a network transmission line, wireless transmission media, signals propagating through space, radio waves, infrared signals, etc. Thus, the “article of manufacture” may comprise the medium in which the code is embodied. Additionally, the “article of manufacture” may comprise a combination of hardware and software components in which the code is embodied, processed, and executed. Of course, those skilled in the art will recognize that many modifications may be made to this configuration without departing from the scope of the present invention, and that the article of manufacture may comprise any information bearing medium known in the art.

The integration server 2 may comprise a separate computer system from one or more systems (not shown) including the applications 8 a, 8 b . . . 8 n. The adapters 14 a, 14 b . . . 14 n may be implemented within the integration server 2 system. The storage 12 a, 12 b . . . 12 n including the application data structures 10 a, 10 b . . . 10 n may be distributed among storage devices or within a single storage device. The clients 4 a, 4 b may comprise separate computing systems used by users to provide data to interact with the integration broker 6. Any computer system implementing the integration server 2, the applications 8 a, 8 b . . . 8 n, and the clients 4 a, 4 b may comprise a single computer system or a distributed computing environment.

FIG. 2 provides an embodiment of components in the integration broker that perform specific operations with respect to generating an application specific business object from a schema. In alternative embodiments, certain of the operations described as performed by the components in FIG. 2 may be performed by different or alternative components employed by the integration broker.

The illustrated operations of FIGS. 5, 6, and 7 show certain events occurring in a certain order. In alternative embodiments, certain operations may be performed in a different order, modified or removed. Moreover, steps may be added to the above described logic and still conform to the described embodiments. Further, operations described herein may occur sequentially or certain operations may be processed in parallel. Yet further, operations may be performed by a single processing unit or by distributed processing units.

The foregoing description of various embodiments of the invention has been presented for the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching. It is intended that the scope of the invention be limited not by this detailed description, but rather by the claims appended hereto. The above specification, examples and data provide a complete description of the manufacture and use of the composition of the invention. Since many embodiments of the invention can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, the invention resides in the claims hereinafter appended. 

1. A method, comprising: accessing a schema defining an application specific data structure for one application; generating a business object including fields corresponding to elements and attributes indicated in the accessed schema; determining application specific information for the generated business object indicating a correspondence of the fields in the business object to the application specific data structure; and writing out the business object with the determined application specific information in a format that is understandable to an integration broker that communicates business objects to a plurality of applications, wherein the business object is capable of being processed by an adapter enabling communication with the application for which the accessed schema is provided.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: calling an application specific agent to generate supporting classes and additional application specific information for the generated business object, wherein the supporting classes and additional application specific information are used by the adapter to transfer data in the business object to the application.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: wherein a schema resolver accesses the schema for the application and generates the business object including the fields corresponding to elements and attributes indicated in the accessed schema; wherein an application specific information (ASI) resolver processes the schema to determine and add the application specific information to the generated business;
 4. The method of claim 3, further comprising: determining, by the ASI resolver, that an agent for the application needs to be called to add application specific information to the generated business object; and calling, by the ASI resolver, the agent for the application to add application specific information to the generated business object and generate any supporting classes needed by the adapter for the application to process the business object.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving data; and adding the received data to a generic business object used by the integration broker.
 6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: using, by the integration broker, a mapping for the application to map the received data from the generic business object to the generated business object; and transferring the generated business object including the received data from the generic business object to the adapter for the application, wherein the adapter transfers the data to the application in the application data format.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the application for which the schema is received comprises a first application, wherein the adapter for the first application comprises a first adapter, wherein the generated business object comprises a first application specific business object, further comprising: using, by the integration broker, a first mapping for the first application to map data in the first application specific business object to a generic business object used by the integration broker; and using, by the integration broker, a second mapping for a second application to map the data from the generic business object to a second application specific business object capable of being processed by a second adapter enabling communication with the second application.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the schema for the first application comprises a first schema, wherein the second application specific business object is created by: accessing a second schema defining an application specific data structure for the second application; generating the second application specific business object including fields corresponding to elements and attributes indicated in the accessed second schema; and adding application specific information to the generated second application specific business object indicating a mapping from the fields in the second application specific business object to the second application specific data structure.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the application comprises a database and the application specific data structure comprises a database table, and wherein the application specific information defines a correspondence of fields in the business object with a database table and columns and/or rows in the database table.
 10. A system for generating business objects used by an integration broker in communication with adaptors enabling communication with applications, comprising: a processor; a memory accessible to the processor; and a computer readable medium including code executed by the processor to perform operations comprising: (i) accessing a schema defining an application specific data structure for one application; (ii) generating a business object in the memory including fields corresponding to elements and attributes indicated in the accessed schema; (iii) determining application specific information for the generated business object indicating a correspondence of the fields in the business object to the application specific data structure; and (iv) writing out the business object with the determined application specific information to the memory in a format that is understandable to the integration broker that communicates business objects to the applications, wherein the business object is capable of being processed by one adapter enabling communication with the application for which the accessed schema is provided.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise: calling an application specific agent to generate supporting classes and additional application specific information for the generated business object, wherein the supporting classes and additional application specific information are used by the adapter to transfer data in the business object to the application.
 12. The system of claim 10, further comprising: a schema resolver for accessing the schema for the application and generating the business object including the fields corresponding to elements and attributes indicated in the accessed schema; and an application specific information (ASI) resolver for processing the schema to determine and add the application specific information to the generated business;
 13. The system of claim 12, further comprising: an agent for the application, wherein the ASI resolver determines whether the agent needs to be called to add application specific information to the generated business object, and wherein the ASI resolver calls the agent for the application to add application specific information to the generated business object and generate any supporting classes needed by the adapter for the application to process the business object.
 14. The system of claim 10, wherein the application comprises a database and the application specific data structure comprises a database table, and wherein the application specific information defines a correspondence of fields in the business object with a database table and columns and/or rows in the database table.
 15. An article of manufacture for generating business objects used by an integration broker in communication with adaptors enabling communication with applications, wherein the code is capable of causing operations to be performed, the operations comprising: accessing a schema defining an application specific data structure for one application; generating a business object including fields corresponding to elements and attributes indicated in the accessed schema; determining application specific information for the generated business object indicating a correspondence of the fields in the business object to the application specific data structure; and writing out the business object with the determined application specific information in a format that is understandable to an integration broker that communicates business objects to a plurality of applications, wherein the business object is capable of being processed by an adapter enabling communication with the application for which the accessed schema is provided.
 16. The article of manufacture of claim 15, wherein the code is capable of communicating with an application specific agent, wherein the operations further comprise: calling the application specific agent to generate supporting classes and additional application specific information for the generated business object, wherein the supporting classes and additional application specific information are used by the adapter to transfer data in the business object to the application.
 17. The article of manufacture of claim 15, wherein the code includes a schema resolver and an application specific information (ASI) resolver, wherein the schema resolver accesses the schema for the application and generates the business object including the fields corresponding to elements and attributes indicated in the accessed schema, and wherein the ASI resolver processes the schema to determine and add the application specific information to the generated business;
 18. The article of manufacture of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise: determining, by the ASI resolver, that an agent for the application needs to be called to add application specific information to the generated business object; and calling, by the ASI resolver, the agent for the application to add application specific information to the generated business object and generate any supporting classes needed by the adapter for the application to process the business object.
 19. The article of manufacture of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise: receiving data; and adding the received data to a generic business object used by the integration broker.
 20. The article of manufacture of claim 15, wherein the integration broker uses a mapping for the application to map the received data from the generic business object to the generated business object, and wherein the integration broker transfers the generated business object including the received data from the generic business object to the adapter for the application, wherein the adapter transfers the data to the application in the application data format.
 21. The article of manufacture of claim 15, wherein the application for which the schema is received comprises a first application, wherein the adapter for the first application comprises a first adapter, wherein the generated business object comprises a first application specific business object, wherein the operations further comprise: providing a first mapping for the first application, used by the integration broker, to map-data in the first application specific business object to a generic business object used by the integration broker; and providing a second mapping for the second application, used by the integration broker, to map the data from the generic business object to a second application specific business object capable of being processed by a second adapter enabling communication with the second application.
 22. The article of manufacture of claim 11, wherein the schema for the first application comprises a first schema, wherein the second application specific business object is created by: accessing a second schema defining an application specific data structure for the second application; generating the second application specific business object including fields corresponding to elements and attributes indicated in the accessed second schema; and adding application specific information to the generated second application specific business object indicating a mapping from the fields in the second application specific business object to the second application specific data structure.
 23. The article of manufacture of claim 15, wherein the application comprises a database and the application specific data structure comprises a database table, and wherein the application specific information defines a correspondence of fields in the business object with a database table and columns and/or rows in the database table. 